How young users deal with multiple platforms: The role of meaning-making in social media repertoires

Abstract

This paper draws upon 50 interviews and a survey (N = 700) to understand how young people in Argentina manage the proliferation of social media platforms in their everyday lives. Applying work on repertoires, niche theory, polymedia, and media ideologies, we explore how users’ practices are shaped by constellations of meaning attributed to each platform. We find that WhatsApp is a multifaceted communication domain; Facebook is a space for displaying the socially-acceptable self; Instagram is an environment for stylized self-presentation; Twitter is a venue for information and informality; and Snapchat is a place for spontaneous and ludic connections. These constellations are shaped socially and comparatively, and are relatively autonomous from technical affordances. We reflect on the relationship between users’ agency and the structures where it is enacted.